In 2006, my Rough Guide to British Cult Comedy was published by Penguin. It received a series of good reviews and is one a very few non-fiction guides to the genre. You can try before you buy http://roughguidetocomedy.blogspot.com/ Buy the Rough Guide to British Cult Comedy at AmazonI will […]
Read MoreGet a BA in comedy: Make them laugh… Heard the one about the BA in comedy? No, really, it exists, because making people laugh, in pubs and clubs and on TV, is big business now. By Julian Hall Last weekend, I did something funny. Bizarre, even. I dropped in on a vocational comedy course that […]
Read MoreThe cup floweth over Julian Hall looks back Chelsea and Fulham player’s World Cup performance and forward to the new season. There was a stage of last season where it looked like south-west London’s two premiership teams might be shoring up both ends of the division. Luckily for the determined manager Chris Coleman and his team, Fulham turned things around […]
Read MoreAs Judge John Deed returns we catch up with Jenny Seagrove who plays barrister Jo Mills You wouldn’t normally expect a man in a grey wig to be a crowd-pleaser, but Judge John Deed certainly is. And he’s back this week for a fifth series of the legal drama. This latest outing for the show, […]
Read MoreLaughter Lines, article about the comedy heritage of the Central Trains region. The Connect region can lay claim to some infamous comedy hotspots. The Independent’s comedy critic Julian Hall gives a run down of some of the best. Let’s start with Liverpool – in the north-west of the Central Trains network – long renowned for […]
Read MoreComedian Arthur Smith has been strutting his stuff at the Edinburgh Fringe for nearly 30 years. On the eve of the city’s festival season he talks Julian Hall about his long association with the Scottish capital-and offers some tips on how to make the most of your festival experience. Last year, 2.6 million people descended […]
Read MoreJerry Sadowitz : Talking through his hat Jerry Sadowitz wants to be billed as ‘the most offensive comedian in the world’. But offstage, he’s the very model of decorum, as Julian Hall discovers Tuesday, 11 May 2004 It’s a beautiful Sunday afternoon in Edinburgh and it seems that most of the city has gathered on the […]
Read MoreSpotlight: The New York Comedy Circuit By Julian Hall Friday, 19 March 2004 New York has had a cold winter. So cold that, according to the comedian Ben Bailey, everyone in the city looked as if they were homeless, wearing at least three coats and having permanently runny noses. Though the advent of spring on […]
Read MoreAlexei Sayle, one of the grandfathers of modern stand-up comedy, and now a successful writer, recently lamented that modern comedians perform as if they have graduated from the “university of comedy”. He could have been talking about Warwick University. Though offering no performance degrees as such, Warwick has an active drama and cabaret scene, an […]
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